Ferreira , Canes part ways
The South African lock who joined the Hurricanes less than three weeks ago has left the Super Rugby franchise without playing a single game.
Former Lions forward Andries Ferreira arrived in Wellington at the beginning of the month to replace Sam Lousi who suffered a season-ending pectoral muscle injury which required surgery.
However, the 28-year-old has suffered a recurrence of a knee injury and is now heading home to South Africa, Hurricanes coach John Plumtree confirmed yesterday.
‘‘He had a recurrence of an injury that he had last year. We thought that he was all good, but he’s come out here and tweaked it again at training.
Plumtree said it would only take about three weeks for him to recover from the injury, but they needed a fit lock in the squad now.
‘‘It’s not worth the effort of doing that [rehab], we’ll just run with what we’ve got.
Prop Toby Smith picked up an ankle injury in Friday’s 23-23 draw with the Chiefs which had him in a moon boot yesterday, meaning he’s likely to miss the game against the Stormers this Saturday.
Fellow prop Alex Fidow was cleared of significant injury after hurting a shoulder on Friday.
Dane Coles will be unavailable after reaching his All Blacksprescribed limit of five matches played in a row.
Meanwhile, the Hurricanes’ players and coaches remain in a state of contemplation following the Christchurch mosque shootings.
There were discussions about whether the game would go ahead, but it did, and Hurricanes first-five Beauden Barrett said it was not an easy game to play.
‘‘It’s pretty tough to have to play a game after that,’’ he said after training yesterday.
‘‘Our thoughts are still with those families. It’s just such a tragedy, but it is positive to see everyone come together to find solutions so that these things never happen again.’’
Once a decision was made for the game to go ahead, the Hurricanes held an urgent team meeting a couple of hours before the 7.35pm kickoff at their hotel before they went to Waikato Stadium.
Hurricanes fullback Chase Tiatia said he thought it was to tell them the game had been called off.
‘‘Personally, I thought the game was going to get cancelled.
‘‘We had an urgent team meeting 10 minutes before the bus was going to leave – I thought that was it, they’re going to cancel the game.
‘‘It affected a lot of the boys’ prep heading into the game. It’s hard to prep for a rugby game when that stuff is going on in New Zealand. It’s quite scary and it threw a few of the boys off.’’
With the game going ahead, the meeting instead dealt with how to process with the events that were unfolding in Christchurch.
Plumtree said yesterday he was still unsure if the game should have gone ahead.
‘‘I think it all happened so quickly . . . possibly not, but everything happened so quickly and it caught everyone by surprise. I guess there wasn’t enough time to make those types of decisions.’’
He said Friday’s events had given them a lot to contemplate.
‘‘It certainly puts it in perspective. Afterwards, the game was a draw and everyone was just following the news and chatting about it when we got back to the hotel. Rugby wasn’t really on our minds, at all. It was a pretty tough night.’’
Plumtree said he hoped sport could provide some people a momentary distraction from the tragedy.
Barrett said sport, and sportspeople, could play an important role during these times in portraying positive messages.
‘‘Just be vulnerable, that’s the key message. Be vulnerable to speak out and talk to each other, no matter what background or where you’re from.
‘‘It’s such a shame that something like this has to happen before we open up.’’
The Hurricanes play the Stormers this Saturday at Westpac Stadium in Wellington.